Squirrel!! Hey friends, welcome back to another precon guide here on EDHREC. Today we’re looking at the new Golgari deck from Bloomburrow. It’s Squirreled Away, led by Hazel of the Rootbloom.

Who Are the Commanders of Squirreled Away?

Hazel is a 3/5 Squirrel Druid for four mana () that you can tap, pay two life, and tap X untapped tokens you control to add X mana of any color combination. Then at the beginning of your end step you make a copy of a token you control, or two copies if the token is a Squirrel.

So we expect this deck to be full of tokens and Squirrels, right? Having ramp in the command zone is always beneficial, especially when it scales with the size of your board. But will this be a combat deck or a sacrifice deck? Maybe a bit of both?

Our backup commander is The Odd Acorn Gang, a 5/5 Squirrel Warrior for five mana () with menace, trample, and reach. It gives your Squirrels the ability to tap themselves to pump another Squirrel, and gives you card draw when your Squirrels hit opponents in combat.

Here’s the full decklist:

What Are the Themes and Strategies of the Deck?

The biggest theme here is the tokens, as you’d expect based on Hazel’s ability. But what kind of tokens are we making? Let’s start with the Squirrels. Squirrel Nest, Nested Shambler, Deep Forest Hermit, Chitterspitter, Chatterstorm, and Chatterfang, Squirrel General are all adding to our Squirrel count, with Chitterspitter making them bigger by sacrificing tokens. For other critters, we’ve got Arasta of the Endless Web for Spiders, Chittering Witch and Ogre Slumlord for Rats, and Garruk, Cursed Huntsman for Wolves. Maskwood Nexus is also here to make Shapeshifters, which count as all creature types. And Beledros Witherbloom makes a Pest at every upkeep. 

These Pests go great with another theme of the deck, which is life gain. Most of this is coming from Food tokens, which we’ll get from cards like Gilded Goose and Tireless Provisioner. There’s also Prosperous Innkeeper, Ravenous Squirrel, and Moldervine Reclamation, as well as some aristocrat life drain happening, with Zulaport Cutthroat, Nadier’s Nightblade, and Bastion of Remembrance. The life gain is great for offsetting the life we pay into Hazel’s mana ability.

Life drain isn’t the only way the deck wants to win. Combat is how we’re going to finish most games, with special help from cards like Beastmaster Ascension and End-Raze Forerunners. Because of this, there’s also a lot of creature removal in the deck to keep enemies out of our way, with cards like Casualties of War, Garruk, Cursed Huntsman, Plaguecrafter, Putrefy, and more.

How Do You Play Squirreled Away?

The most important thing to note here is that if you don’t have any tokens, Hazel is basically a vanilla 3/5. So keep that in mind when picking your starting hand. When you do have tokens, Hazel is awesome. Where she comes in most handy is with activated abilities that you can do at instant speed. Cards like Gilded Goose, Chittering Witch, Maskwood Nexus, and Ravenous Squirrel are all much better when activate them at our opponent’s end step so we can hold up mana for interaction if needed. Having ten Squirrel tokens is great, but what’s even better is blocking a large attack with them, then tapping them to make mana with Hazel and dumping that mana into making more tokens.

The best token maker in the deck is Academy Manufactor, hands down. This Assembly-Worker turns one token into three, which triples the amount of mana that Hazel can make. If there were a Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves in the deck, I’d tell you to put it on Manufactor and leave it there. Sadly, the deck has no protection spells for its creatures. There are, surprisingly, also no ways to get creatures back from the grave once they die. The only exception is Woe Strider, which only gets itself back with its escape ability. No protection and no recursion are huge oversights in the deck’s design that you’ll have a hard time overcoming if someone gets aggressive with board wipes.

Also, in all of my playtests of the deck, I had trouble getting cards into my hand. It’s hard to pin down why this is, especially since there are over a dozen cards in the deck that I’d categorize as card advantage, with the best ones being Idol of Oblivion, Skullclamp, and Shamanic Revelation. Both The Odd Acorn Gang and Toski, Bearer of Secrets give us card draw when we hit opponents in combat. With so many of our creatures being 1/1s, this isn’t always beneficial. Not until we’ve built up a critical number of them, anyway. Other card draw spells require sacrifice, such as Ravenous Squirrel, Plumb the Forbidden, and Deadly Dispute. It’s harder to damage our opponents with creatures if we’re sacrificing them for card draw. And while the deck does well in making tokens, not all of them are creatures, and it won’t always be enough creatures where we can be both aggro and sacrifice. So this leads to a bit of an identity crisis.

What Are the New Cards in Squirreled Away?

In addition to the two commanders, each Bloomburrow precon gives us another eight new cards to squirrel away into our decks and binders. Let’s take a look at what’s new in this deck.

Hazel’s Brewmaster is a 3/4 Squirrel Warlock with menace that exiles a card from a graveyard and makes a Food token whenever it enters or attacks. It also gives all of our Food tokens all activated abilities of cards the Brewmaster has exiled. With the proliferation of Abzan Food decks thanks to Tales of Middle-earth, I expect this to find a home in many decks. Gyome, Master Chef players will also be happy to add it.

Scurry of Squirrels is a 2/2 Squirrel Scout with two instances of myriad. So when you attack with it, you’ll make two copies attacking each other player. And when it deals damage to a player, you put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control. Sending a 2/2 into battle in Commander is always a tricky proposition; it’ll die to almost anything. But there’s still a lot to be said for potentially dumping eight power on the board. What the card really needs to make it great is a way to make the Squirrels bigger, like Squirrel Sovereign or Chitterspitter.

Squirrels aren’t the only rodents having fun in this deck. Insatiable Frugivore is a 2/4 Rat Berserker that creates a Food on entry, and lets you make another one if you exile three cards from your graveyard. You can also pay four mana and sacrifice X Foods to give all of your creatures +X+0 and menace until end of turn. This is going to work especially well with the new Ygra, Eater of All, who turns all other creatures into Food. 

Our last new creature is Moonstone Eulogist, a 4/4 Bat Warlock with flying that creates a Blood token whenever a creature an opponent controls dies. And whenever we sacrifice an artifact, we put a +1/+1 counter on Eulogist and gain a life. This one will be hot in both Treasure decks, like Prosper, Tome-Bound, and Blood decks like Strefan, Maurer Progenitor. Or even Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest decks focused on artifacts.

The Class card included in this precon is Gourmand’s Talent, which turns all of our artifacts into Food during our turn. For three mana we move up to level two, which gives us a 3/3 Raccoon token the first time we gain life each turn. And to get to level three we pay four mana, and put a +1/+1 counter on each creature we control the first time we gain life each turn. Like Hazel’s Brewmaster, this one will see a lot of play in Food decks.

Our last new permanent is an Equipment, Sword of the Squeak (a callback to Sword of the Meek). The equipped creature gets +1/+1 for each creature we control with base power or toughness of 1, and whenever a Hamster, Mouse, Rat, or Squirrel enters we can equip the Sword for free. This could see a lot of play in small token decks, like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar or Chatterfang, Squirrel General. But where it’s most at home is with Bess, Soul Nourisher.

Our last two cards are sorceries. Rootcast Apprenticeship is a modal spell that lets us choose three among these options: put two +1/+1 counters on a creature; create a token copy of another token we control; target player makes a 1/1 Squirrel; target opponent sacrifices a nontoken artifact. This card is going to be very situational, but can be incredibly strong in those situations. Even when the other modes aren’t needed, dropping six +1/+1 counters on our commander is never a bad thing, especially for just four mana. The only mode on here that seems underwhelming is the Squirrel tokens. But even that can serve a purpose at the right time.

And there’s Swarmyard Massacre, a five-mana sorcery that gives us two Squirrel tokens and then gives all creatures that aren’t Squirrels, Rats, Insects, and Spiders -1/-1 for each Squirrel, Rat, Insect, and Spider we control. In the right deck, this is a one-sided board wipe. And for just five mana, a one-sided board wipe is extremely powerful. There are plenty of Rat, Insect (hello Scute Swarm), and Spider decks running around out there that will be excited to get their hands on this card. And now a lot more Squirrel decks too. Also good to note is that this card works beautifully with Maskwood Nexus.

Is Squirreled Away Worth Buying?

Is the deck any good? Here’s my final grade:

C+

This deck is a lot of fun when it’s doing what it wants to do, which is making a lot of tokens. And, usually, it does this pretty well. There are some fantastic new cards in the list, with Swarmyard Massacre, Hazel’s Brewmaster, and Gourmand’s Talent being standouts, despite being very niche cards.

This precon gets top marks in the reprint category, with so much value here that preorder prices instantly skyrocketed as soon as the deck list was revealed. Highlights are Beledros Witherbloom, Swarmyard, Chatterfang, Squirrel General, and Saw in Half.

Where the deck loses points is in the design flaws of trying to be a go-wide deck, but with so much of the card draw being built around sacrificing creatures. If we keep tearing down our own army, then our combat finishers like Beastmaster Ascension and End-Raze Forerunners don’t do a whole lot. Essentially, this deck wants to eat its cake and have it too. Its inability to either protect its creatures or bring them back if they die is also a huge oversight.

Can I get this deck on a straighter path to woodland dominance? Find out in my Upgrade Guide. And stay tuned for more precon guides, right here on EDHREC.

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